Ladybuglizzy: WV Conf: Take Me Home, Country Roads

I spent last weekend down in West Virginia for yet another YSA conference. It is starting to get hard to keep them all straight! This year WV opted to hold their conference at Jackson's Mill, a camp with some history. It's part of the WVU campus.

Truth in Advertising!

After months and months of sounding like a broken record promoting this conference to the other YSAs in our group, it was finally time to go. I had a full car going down- my friend Kaitlyn sat up front with me and we had two guys from our fhe group in the backseat. If I wasn't driving, none of them would have had a way to WV! The trip down took about 5 hours, it took longer because of the rain and traffic and pitstops needed.

But we got there just in time for....stupid Get to Know You Games! Why, they're my favorite! {Sarcasm Sign}

I was forced to play, they had several teams rotate through activities. I am proud to admit that I did well during Musical Chairs- I lost out when four tried to become three. Out of a group of 14! We all have hidden talents. Oh, and I faked needing to do something with my phone so I could escape church-themed charades. How would you portray "Fishers of Men"? I don't know either and didn't want to try.

Once again, Get to Know You Games don't really let you get to know people. Although they let you see who's cool under pressure.

Some poor girl dumped a ton of water on herself and all over the stage and floor during apple bobbing:

Running around with a kite attached to your hat- how sexy!

Is it now clear why I hate GTKYG? At least they weren't SFGTKYG.

No, I didn't participate in either activity. Though gosh, they looked fun. {Sarcasm Sign}

The real fun that night was the bon fire. Our speaker told the story of his first date with his wife- a bad date story that puts most bad date stories to rest! What an amazing woman to see past all that. It was fun to hang out with my friends and joke around. No photos of the bonfire- kindof hard to take pics in the dark.

Saturday was an early breakfast (7:30 am!) and then classes. First was a class where you covered a small military size Book of Mormon with fabric and doodads using irons and Wonder Under. It even has a magnetic closure. Pretty sweet.

Yup, mine's the aqua one!

Then it was finger-poking fun at woodcarving!
Here's what ours was supposed to look like:

Mine is *not* that far along. At all.

After lunch was Geocaching. I'd never done it before so it was fun to learn how to input coordinates and find stuff. My guy partner (not pictured) was less than desirable but I survived.

Then we got to watch an educational lecture from a raptor bird sanctuary/rescue place. They rehabilitate hurt birds of prey and use the ones that can't go back into the wild in their demos. It was an interesting show, it was neat to see the birds.

We saw a screech owl, "Owlice"

A broadwing hawk named "Neo"

...and a tame red tail hawk named Annie that was probably stolen from the wild and tamed (illegal!).

This bird can really poop. Let me tell ya.

Later came free time and we walked down to the General Store. Saw a Civil War camp reenactment and people in period dress.

Reenactment with guns:

Fed the big koi fish in the pond:

After dinner, there was a speaker, the Mission President of the WV mission. He spoke about the theme and how there is really only one road to God and it's up to us if we're near or far. (Are you thinking about Grover at this point? I was!) It was a good talk and uplifting.

And since we were in WV, you gotta square dance. It's the law. I got roped into square dancing which was fine but I was so mad that I got tricked into having to be partners with a girl. And we were the only same sex couple in the entire room of 6 groups. They needed one more couple to complete a group and had run out of willing boys. At any rate, it was mortifying. And fed several complexes of mine. Probably other people didn't care that it was us girls, but I was mad that I was tricked/forced into it, mad that no guy wanted to be my partner in the first place and just mad. I have not been that mad in some time. Definitely the low point of the conference. Our group kept messing up too on account of our partnership- the guys kept trying to dance with me and would forget that I was "the boy". Or I'd forget that I was not supposed to do the girl part. I was so glad to be done with that! Other people looked like they were having fun, it was fun to watch my friends dance. Some groups did very well.

Then came the real dance, I was glad to groove my anger away. It actually was a pretty good dance and I did get asked to dance once. I did run away from some undesirable men, though. It was too dark to take a pic during the dance but I wanted to show off my new shirt so here you go:

We slept very well that night.

Breakfast again at 7:30 am and then Sacrament meeting. There were some really wonderful testimonies borne.

Sunday best:

Kaitlyn, Mitch and myself

The campgrounds were lovely. Spring has come to WV and it was great to have warm temps (could have done without the humidity), green grass and blooms in the trees. The cabins were really sweet looking and nice inside. Because it is Jackson's Mill, there are millstones everywhere.

Even in stone foundations: